


Spring Storms and Dandelions

by liketreesinnovember



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 13:11:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16913466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketreesinnovember/pseuds/liketreesinnovember
Summary: "He had been born in the dead of winter, a terrible cruel one that the maesters said had lasted near three years, but Tyrion's earliest memories were of spring."





	Spring Storms and Dandelions

Tyrion learns to walk on a hill overlooking the sea, where clumps of grass and spring weeds grow between outcroppings of stone. Every so often, the small child bends down to pluck a dandelion from where it springs forth from the rocky earth, but the rocks are slippery and the child's legs are like those of a newborn calf, and he often loses purchase and falls, scraping fleshy knees and elbows on the sharp edges.

  
The child does not cry when this happens. He looks about perplexedly for a few minutes, and then down sadly at the crushed dandelion grasped tightly in his chubby fingers, and then, slowly, pushes himself back up on wobbly legs and toddles shakily but determinedly towards another patch of growth.   
  
“He’s too bold,” Jaime remarks, watching the child. “He'll dash his head on those rocks one of these days.”   
  
“I hope he does,” Cersei says. A cold, salty wind comes up from the sea and tousles her golden hair.   
  
  
At night the sea reaches out towards the shore and crashes against the Rock which the Lannisters’ ancestors had carved into a home, the rumbling echoing deep through the caverns beneath the castle proper. The youngest Lannister hears the sound and imagines great terrible lions snarling at each other, fighting for ownership of the caverns. Sometimes he would dream that these lions lived in the sea, and would come up on shore at night to hunt, looking for small boys who did not grow properly to kill and eat. Cersei had told him once that a mother lion devours any cub that is born too weak, and that Tyrion had killed his mother before she had had the chance to do what should have been done. Tyrion had not believed her, but he had found the truth in a book in the library. The account was written by a maester who had observed a pregnant female who had wandered away from the pride and become stranded in a ravine and there given birth to a malformed cub. The mother was too weak to feed the cub, who had been born blind and lame, and the maester wrote of how she had devoured her own get after days without nourishment.  _ Though it may seem contrary to us that a mother's natural instinct could be so utterly lacking,  _ the maester had written, _ is it not fair for the mother to eat her own, and survive, rather than suffer the death of both mother and cub? _ Tyrion had closed the book and shoved it towards the back of the highest shelf he could reach.   
  
Now, in the darkness, with the roaring of the waves echoing through the stone, and accompanying thunderclaps from somewhere across the sea, the boy slips quietly out of bed and down the hall, as stealthily as he can manage on his stunted legs, and into the chambers that he knows almost as well as his own. He approaches the big bed and has to stand on tiptoes to reach over it.   
  
“Jaime.” The voice is small and high in the dark.   
  
His big brother turns, rises sleepily, and blinks down at him.   
  
“Scared of the storm, little Imp?”   
  
Tyrion frowns. “No.” He makes an attempt to steady his voice. “I just wanted to ask you…how did Loren the First survive the Field of Fire? I was reading about it today and the history says he became the first Warden of the West after he survived the Field of Fire and submitted to the Targaryens, when King Mern IX was killed in battle, but how did Loren survive?”   
  
Jaime grimaces in the darkness. “It's too late - too early - for history, little brother.” Besides, Tyrion was always better at history than Jaime, even though the latter was almost a man grown.   
  
Another clap of thunder echoes around them and Tyrion winces despite his former resolve. “Come here,” Jaime says, lifting Tyrion up onto the large featherbed. The boy snuggles in happily next to him and Jaime settles back down as well, pulling the bedclothes over them both.   
  
“But how did he survive the dragons?” Tyrion persists, the boy's mismatched eyes wide and glittering in the darkness.   
  
“By getting lots of sleep,” Jaime mumbles.   
  
“No, I don't think that's right,” says Tyrion after a long moment, but his brother is already asleep. Tyrion curls up against Jaime's big broad chest and thinks about lions and dragons, and in his dreams there is a huge battle, with all the great beasts of the world clawing and snapping at each other for dominance, until finally the sea comes in and all the creatures are washed away.   
  
  
Jaime and Cersei are sitting with legs entwined at the feet of one of the great statues in the Hall of Heroes. Tyrion is running between the stone heroes, naming each one by name from one of his books. Jaime leans over and presses his lips against Cersei's mouth, but she pushes him away.   
  
“Not with him here.”   
  
“He follows us everywhere, when are we to have a moment alone? Besides, he's only a child, he doesn't understand.”   
  
“He follows  _ you _ everywhere.”   
  
At the moment, Tyrion is too interested in the statues to notice much of anything else.   
  
Jaime smiles. “I cannot help it if the boy looks up to me.”   
  
“You indulge him,” Cersei says.   
  
Jaime watches Tyrion running between the statues. The boy stumbles occasionally but manages to catch himself on wobbly legs. Jaime's little brother will never hold a sword in his hand. It becomes clearer every day, the older Tyrion grows, that he will never live a normal life, if he even lives to become a man.   
  
“Alright, a new game,” Jaime says.   
  
“I tire of you games so,” Cersei pulls her legs beneath her skirt.   
  
“I dare you to...kiss Tyrion!”   
  
Cersei makes a face and Jaime laughs.   
  
“Come here, Tyrion!” Jaime sings, his voice echoing in the long hall. Their dwarf brother turns and begins to toddle over to them.   
  
“Our sweet sister has something for you, Tyrion.” Jaime says, trying to keep from laughing.   
  
The boy looks uncertainly between them.   
  
“You're disgusting,” Cersei says to Jaime, and shoves him to the ground as she stands up. She neatly crosses the short distance to where their little brother is standing, and, scrunching up her face, presses her lips to Tyrion’s round cheek. She recoils immediately and so does he, his face reddening. Momentarily he thinks that she might strike him, but she only makes a face and laughs and so does Jaime. Tyrion looks down at his toes.   
  
The kiss makes him feel strange, and oddly embarrassed, although he knows it had only been a dare.   
  
  
Sleep never comes easy for Tyrion, and when it does, it often brings worse torments than those of his days. Maybe if he had been big like Jaime, he thinks, he might have been strong enough to ward off the nightmares. Father always said that a Lannister must be strong.   
  
It is shortly after Tysha that he is not strong enough, cannot stop the nightmares that invade his sleep. He learns, in those months, that wine helps. He is far too old to share a bed with Jaime, now. He dreams of a place that stinks of sweat and sex and blood, and a girl's screams, and Father's eyes. He wakes up to the rumbling sound of thunder overhead - not lions or monsters, just thunder - and there are tears on his face. He is uncomfortably hard, though, and there's a sticky wetness between his legs. It makes him feel ashamed.   
  
Another night, he wakes from the same dream to the same storm, but when he opens his eyes there is a shadow standing over him.   
  
_ Tysha? _ Her name comes to his lips, but his throat is dry as cotton and what comes out is barely a sound.   
  
“Tyrion.” Jaime's face comes into view as his eyes adjust to the darkness. “You were asleep but I...I heard you.”   
  
Tyrion looks away, not wanting Jaime to see his shame. Then he feels Jaime's weight on the bed, and then he's burying his face in Jaime's chest, and feeling like he's six years old again, and shivering. He is shamed by his weakness, but that shame is better than the shame of guilt, the shame of being alone.   
  
“It's alright,” Jaime says, and Tyrion knows that it's a lie, but sometimes a lie is kinder than the truth.   
  



End file.
